Schizophrenia is a debilitating disorder afflicting 1% of the world's population. The development of effective medications to treat schizophrenia is reliant on advances in characterizing the underlying pathophysiology. Chlorpromazine and other phenothiazines are considered first generation antipsychotics (termed “typical antipsychotics”) useful in the treatment of schizophrenia. However, the antipsychotic efficacy of phenothiazines was, in fact, serendipitously discovered. These drugs were initially used for their antihistaminergic properties and later for their potential anesthetic effects during surgery. Hamon and colleagues extended the use of phenothiazines to psychiatric patients and quickly uncovered the antipsychotic properties of these compounds; shortly thereafter, the pharmacologic characteristic of dopamine receptor blockade was linked to the antipsychotic action of chlorpromazine (Thorazine). This led to the development of additional dopamine receptor antagonists, including haloperidol (Haldol). For nearly fifty years, dopamine antagonists were the standard treatment for schizophrenia even though these drugs induce severe side effects ranging from Parkinson's disease-like motor impairments to sexual dysfunction and are only effective in treating the positive symptoms of schizophrenia.
In the 1970's, clozapine became the first “atypical psychotic” or 2nd generation antipsychotic agent introduced. Clinical trials have shown that clozapine produces fewer motor side effects and exhibits improved efficacy against positive and negative symptoms relative to 1st generation compounds. However, clozapine was briefly withdrawn from the market because of the potential to produce severe agranulocytosis, a potentially fatal side effect requiring patients to undergo routine, costly hematological monitoring. As a result, clozapine is only approved for treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Although also a dopamine receptor antagonist, the therapeutic site of action for clozapine is thought to involve blockade of serotonin receptors. This led to the generation of other serotonin receptor antagonists in the 1990's with the goal of improving the safety profile of clozapine.
The growth potential for novel antipsychotics was revealed following the introduction of risperidone in 1994; within two years risperidone overtook haloperidol in the number of prescriptions written by physicians. While it was generally assumed that the newer 2nd generation antipsychotics also exhibited the favorable efficacy profile produced by clozapine, the clinical data was ambiguous. As a result, the NIH recently funded a large, lengthy, and expensive clinical trial to examine this assumption. The results of the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE), recently released, indicate that there is no benefit to the newer 2nd generation compounds. Specifically, 1st and 2nd generation drugs did not differ in the rate of discontinuation, which was on average 74% over an 18 month period, in part due to a lack of efficacy and intolerability of the treatment regimen.
As can be appreciated from the foregoing, there exists a pressing need and considerable market potential for novel antipsychotic agents. Of course, the development of effective antipsychotic agents will be facilitated by a thorough understanding of pathophysiologies underlying the neurological disorders.